Story 1: Grand Jury Indicts 13 Russians Trolls and 3 Russian Companies Commit Federal Crimes While Interfering With United States Political System By Sowing Discord in America Including Rallies For and Against Trump After Election — No Impact on Election Outcome and No Americans Colluded With Russians — Trump and Campaign Vindicated — When Will Their Be Indictments of The Clinton Obama Conspiracy? — Is That All There Is? — Videos —

troll farm

New Word Suggestion

An organization whose employees or members attempt to create conflict and disruption in an online community by posting deliberately inflammatory or provocative comments.

Additional Information

E.g. his username was not from one of the usual troll farms.

Peggy Lee — Is That All There Is? 1969

Is That All There Is

I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire
I’ll never forget the look on my father’s face as he gathered me up
in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement
I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames
And when it was all over I said to myself, is that all there is to a fire

Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is

And when I was twelve years old, my father took me to a circus, the greatest show on earth
There were clowns and elephants and dancing bears
And a beautiful lady in pink tights flew high above our heads
And so I sat there watching the marvelous spectacle
I had the feeling that something was missing
I don’t know what, but when it was over
I said to myself, “is that all there is to a circus?

Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is

Then I fell in love, head over heels in love, with the most wonderful boy in the world
We would take long walks by the river or just sit for hours gazing into each other’s eyes
We were so very much in love
Then one day he went away and I thought I’d die, but I didn’t
and when I didn’t I said to myself, is that all there is to love?

Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing

I know what you must be saying to yourselves
if that’s the way she feels about it why doesn’t she just end it all?
Oh, no, not me I’m in no hurry for that final disappointment
for I know just as well as I’m standing here talking to you
when that final moment comes and I’m breathing my first breath, I’ll be saying to myself

Is that all there is, is that all there is
If that’s all there is my friends, then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball

Ben Shapiro: President Trump gets some good news on the Robert Mueller’s investigation! (02-19-2018)

Hannity: Examining key points from Russian indictments

White House reacts to Russia indictments

Tucker: Here’s what seems true about Russia indictments

Tucker: You will here a lot of propaganda about the indictment of 13 Russian citizens accused of trying to meddle in the 2016 election. Here’s what seems true: No evidence any vote was changed and Russia tried to ‘sow discord.’

Carter Page reacts to Russia meddling indictments

Tucker vs Rob Reiner

Trump Tweets 14 Times in 24 Hours on Russia Investigations

James Clapper: No doubt Russia wanted to sway election

Lawrence: Advisers Held Off Donald Trump’s Golfing, But Not His Tweeting | The Last Word | MSNBC

Russian indictment lays out how they financed “sophisticated operation” in the U.S., ex-federal p…

Stelter: Pro-Trump media’s dishonest Russia talking points

Watch Rosenstein’s full announcement of the indictment of 13 Russians

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein on Feb. 16 announced the indictment of 13 Russians linked to a troll farm as part of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into meddling in the 2016 election.

The Troll Farm: What We Know About 13 Russians Indicted by the U.S.

55 Savushkina Street in St. Petersburg, Russia, the former home of the Internet Research Agency.CreditJames Hill for The New York Times

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — Operating from St. Petersburg, they churned out falsehoods on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. They promoted Donald J. Trump and denigrated Hillary Clinton. They stole the identities of American citizens. They organized political rallies in several states, and hired a Clinton impersonator for one event, in West Palm Beach, Fla.

On Friday, 13 Russians were indicted by a federal grand jury in Washington on fraud and other charges. Details of their roles in a three-year campaignto disrupt American democracy have begun to emerge from the indictment, other records, interviews and press accounts.

The Oligarch: Yevgeny V. Prigozhin

Photo

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin controlled two companies that financed the operations of the Internet Research Agency, a shadowy troll farm.CreditMikhail Metzel/TASS, via Getty Images

A former teenage champion cross-country skier who was later imprisoned for robbery, Mr. Prigozhin started a hot-dog business as the Soviet Union collapsed and eventually branched into convenience stores and restaurants. He received catering contracts and threw lavish state banquets. He has played host to world leaders like George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac. He developed a close relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin, and has been derogatively called “Putin’s cook.”

According to the indictment, he controlled two companies that financed the operations of the Internet Research Agency, a shadowy troll farm. Created in 2013, it began a so-called translator project in 2014 that targeted Americans and pursued “information warfare against the United States.” It employed hundreds of people and, by the summer of 2016, was spending $1.2 million a month.

In the past five years, Mr. Prigozhin has received government contracts worth $3.1 billion. Lately, he has branched out into areas like recruiting contract soldiers to fight overseas and establishing a popular online news service that pushes a nationalist viewpoint, making him even more indispensable to Mr. Putin. Mr. Prigozhin, 56, declined several interview requests from The New York Times in recent months.

One sign of his connection to the trolls, according to the indictment: In what appeared to be something of an inside joke, people working for the Internet Research Agency paid an American to hold a sign outside the White House — “Happy 55th Birthday, Dear Boss” — to celebrate Mr. Prigozhin’s birthday (June 1) in 2016.

The C.E.O.: Mikhail I. Bystrov

Mr. Bystrov is a retired St. Petersburg police colonel who, according to the indictment, joined the company in February 2014 and became its highest-ranking official. He also led shell entities that were used to conceal its activities, including one called Glavset, a so-called database and information company. It shared an address — 55 Savushkina Street — with the Internet Research Agency. (The troll farm has since moved to Optikov Street, according to the local press.)

The troll farm soon drew notice in Russia: news outlets reported that it employed 250 people in 12-hour shifts to provide a round-the-clock flow of pro-Kremlin posts and comments, praising Mr. Putin and excoriating President Barack Obama and President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine. Monthly salaries ranged from $1,100 for a junior analyst to $1,400 for a blogger to $4,200 a month for senior management.

Mr. Bystrov, who is believed to be 59, has avoided reporters and declined interview requests.

The Executive Director: Mikhail L. Burchik

Mikhail L. Burchik

A young tech entrepreneur, Mr. Burchik, 31, joined the company in October 2013 and became its executive director, the No. 2 official, by March 2014, according to the indictment.

According to online records, he registered a company in 2009 called Add1.ru that was behind a 2014 hoax. In that hoax, a young woman in aviator sunglasses calling herself Zoe Foreman spent hours spamming politicians and journalists about a horrific — and fictitious — chemical plant explosion in Louisiana.

“I have heard of it, but I don’t work in this organization,” he told the journalist Adrian Chen, who wrote about the troll farm in 2015 for The New York Times Magazine. He said he had bought and sold many internet domains and didn’t remember them all.

Mr. Burchik also won government contracts to publish local municipal newspapers, organize lectures and do some video reports.

Throughout the troll farm’s operations to interfere in American politics, including the election, “Burchik was a manager involved in operational planning, infrastructure and personnel,” according to the indictment.

The business news website RBC reported on Friday that Mr. Burchik claimed not to know English well enough to understand what he had been accused of. “If a few hundred million Americans are so worried about the activities of a regular Russian small-business man from the IT-sphere doing website development, then it seems the situation in the country is completely grave,” he said.

Mr. Burchik told Komsomolskaya Pravda, a Russian tabloid, that he was not concerned about being detained while traveling abroad. “I love my country. In Russia there are many beautiful places where you can go,” he said.

GRAPHIC

The Propaganda Tools Used by Russians to Influence the 2016 Election

Thirteen Russian nationals have been charged with illegally trying to disrupt the American political process through inflammatory social media posts and organized political rallies.

OPEN GRAPHIC

Mr. Burchik has worked on several small government projects in St. Petersburg. In 2015 he was awarded a contract worth about $20,000 to develop and publish a newspaper called Dvortsovy Ukrug, for the administration of one of St. Petersburg’s municipal districts, according to government documents.

That same year, another municipal district government awarded him a similar contract to prepare a film about its activities. And in 2012, he won a $4,500 contract for organizing a program for promoting “tolerance and prevention of drug addiction” for local schools.

The Travelers: Anna V. Bogacheva and Aleksandra Y. Krylova

Ms. Bogacheva and Ms. Krylova obtained visas to visit the United States in 2014 “under false pretenses for the purposes of collecting intelligence to inform the organization’s operatives,” according to the indictment. They are said to have embarked on what amounted to a three-week reconnaissance tour, visiting California, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, New York and Texas. Along the way, they bought SIM cards, cameras and drop phones and discussed “evacuation scenarios” and other security measures.

According to the indictment, Ms. Bogacheva oversaw the data analysis group for the “translator project.” A woman with the same name was listed in 2013 on the website of ITMO, a prestigious science university in St. Petersburg, as a doctoral candidate. She worked there from 2011 to 2014, as an engineer in the eScience Research Institute, according to a university spokeswoman. Many of the school’s graduates have gone on to work for the Russian government or for large tech companies.

Ms. Bogacheva also owns IT Debugger, a company that says it has worked with “difficult clients.”

Ms. Krylova became the No. 3 person at the troll farm, according to the indictment. According to what appears to be her LinkedIn profile, she is a graduate of the Moscow State University of Printing Arts, where she studied with the faculty of advertising and public relations.

She was the head of the Federal News Agency, which is believed to be Mr. Prigozhin’s flagship media outlet. The agency is known for its exclusive coverage of Russian private armies on Syria’s front line.

The I.T. Expert: Sergey P. Polozov

Mr. Polozov ran the troll farm’s I.T. department and oversaw the purchase of space on computer servers inside the United States to set up virtual private networks that masked the agency’s Russian location, according to the indictment. After a co-conspirator traveled to Atlanta in November 2014, he gave Mr. Polozov a summary of his trip and expenses.

According to business records and Mr. Polozov’s page on the Russian social network Vkontakte, Mr. Polozov runs a software company called Morkov, which was registered in 2013, and began to recruit web developers and programmers in early 2014.

“In need of people with knowledge of website promotion for full-time work,” he wrote in a Vkontakte post on May 28, 2014. “If interested, send me a personal message. You can send your résumé immediately.”

On Vkontakte, he shared political jokes at the expense of Russia’s rivals and neighbors. One post he shared in June 2015 quoted the Chechen writer German Sadulaev:

The greatest possible mistake is to neglect the Russians. Consider them weak. Offend them. Never offend the Russians. The Russians are never as weak as you think they are. God forbid you expel the Russians or take something from them. The Russians always come back. The Russians will come back and take back what is theirs. But when the Russians return, they do not apply force proportionally. They destroy everything in their path.

The ‘Translators’: Maria A. Bovda and Robert S. Bovda

Not much is known about the Bovdas, including their relationship. According to the indictment, she was the head, and he the deputy head, of the “translator project,” the troll farm’s campaign to target Americans with messages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, starting in April 2014. The project employed hundreds of people and, by the summer of 2016, was spending $1.2 million a month. It hid activities through a web of shell companies. According to the indictment, Ms. Bovda and Mr. Bovda both worked for the troll farm for about a year, from November 2013 to October 2014.

The America Specialist: Dzheykhun N. O. Aslanov

According to the indictment, Mr. Aslanov oversaw many of the operations targeting the United States election. An investigation by RBC, a newsmagazine, found that Mr. Aslanov was in charge of the “American department” of the troll farm. It reported that Mr. Aslanov arrived in St. Petersburg in 2000 from his hometown Ust-Kut, in the Irkutsk region. His Vkontakte profile says he graduated from the Russian State Hydrometeorological University in St. Petersburg in 2012, and a university page indicates that he studied economics and wildlife management.

The RBC report says that he spent several months in the United States in 2009, visiting New York and Boston. His work at the troll farm included registering legal entities in the names of his employees.

His name appears in public records as general director of Azimut — which, according to the indictment, was used to funnel money to the troll farm — and of the Reputation Management Center. According to its website, the Reputation Management Center first determines what kind of reputation a client has online through media monitoring, and then creates bots that improve its image through positive posts, “drowns negative reviews in a sea of favorable information about the company” and “creates hype” around it.

Ms. Kaverzina grew worried after Facebook revealed last September that it was cooperating with the authorities to look into Russian advertising on the platform. “We had a slight crisis here at work: the F.B.I. busted our activity (not a joke),” she wrote to a relative, according to the indictment. “So, I got preoccupied with covering tracks together with the colleagues,” she added. “I created all these pictures and posts, and the Americans believed that it was written by their people.”

Mr. Podkopaev was an analyst for the “translator project.” He conducted research on the United States and drafted social media messages for the organization, according to the indictment.

Mr. Vasilchenko posted to, monitored and updated social media accounts while posing as Americans or as American grass-roots organizations. He led two subgroups focused on political interference in the United States, including the election. On Vkontakte, he shared a meme in October 2016 that imagined a drinking game in which players took a shot every time Mr. Trump talked about building a wall along the Mexican-United States border or making America great again, told voters to believe him, or complained about being treated unfairly; and every time Mrs. Clinton coughed, sipped water, laughed awkwardly, or mentioned her daughter or President Barack Obama.

Mr. Venkov inhabited multiple social media personas, according to the indictment. Someone with that name belongs to a Facebook group of social media marketing professionals and posted a photo last May of himself wearing a Republican elephant pin.

Ivan Nechepurenko reported from St. Petersburg, and Michael Schwirtz from New York. Reporting was contributed by Oleg Matsnev, Neil MacFarquhar and Sophia Kishkovsky from Moscow; Lincoln Pigman from London; and Jack Begg and Sewell Chan from New York.

The special counsel investigating foreign interference in the 2016 US presidential election has accused 13 Russian nationals and several related organizations with committing fraud to support Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and sabotage his rival, Hillary Clinton.

The indictment below was issued today. It is unlikely to result in extradition of the individuals from Russia, but the document could lay the groundwork for charges against Americans for aiding and abetting their work, though no Americans are implicated in this document.

Its charges also provide new evidence for claims by US intelligence agencies that Russia attempted to manipulate US voters in 2016. Though it does not weigh in on how much the Russian propaganda effort altered the election, it says the messages reached “significant numbers of Americans.” The Internet Research Agency, the organization at the heart of the indictment, has been connected for years to internet security breaches on behalf of the Russian government.

The individuals named in the document stole US identities and created false online presences to spread political propaganda, even hosting their own rallies. One Twitter handle impersonating Tennessee’s Republican party attracted more than 100,000 followers. An internal message instructed the operators to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump—we support them).”

Story 2: FBI Epic Failure In Not Stopping Mentally Disturbed Killer in Parkland Florida — Missed Following Up Two Tips — Government Failures Locally, County, State, and Federal Levels — Government Dependence Kills — Videos

Fla. school shooting suspect was flagged to cops, FBI

Should heads roll over FBI mishandling of Nikolas Cruz case?

Why did a Florida shooter FBI tip fall through the cracks?

Jeff Sessions on school shootings: “We’ve got to confront the problem”

Judge Jeanine: The FBI needs a complete overhaul

Justice Department orders review of FBI in wake of Florida shooting

Man who warned FBI of Florida shooter speaks out

Former intel officer on Florida Shooting: Epic failure of FBI

Why did a Florida shooter FBI tip fall through the cracks?

The FBI says it got a tip about the man accused of murdering 17 people in Parkland, Florida, but never investigated. Director Christopher Wray said on Friday that a caller warned the bureau of Nikolas Cruz’s desire to kill people. Judy Woodruff talks with The Washington Post’s Matt Zapotosky and former assistant attorney general John Carlin.

What Is An “Assault Rifle”? – You’ve Probably Been Lied To

The Difference Between SEMI-AUTOMATIC and FULLY AUTOMATIC GUNS

Assault Rifle vs. Sporting Rifle

The media and the anti-gunners are trying to tell Americans that “assault weapons” need to be banned for public safety. The problem is, assault rifles were banned in 1986. What they want to ban now are semi-automatic sporting firearms. The firearms they want to ban account for less than 1% of the firearms used in crime. We need to stop this mindless attack on our Constitutional rights.

Inside the AK-47

What is a Bump Stock? Should it be illegal?!

“Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable,” President Trump tweeted late Saturday night. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

President Trump said the FBI is too focused on trying to prove collusion between his campaign and the Russians and suggested that this may have contributed to the agency’s bungled handling of a tip about the shooter who killed 17 people and injured scores more at a Florida high school last week.”Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable,” Trump tweeted late Saturday night. “They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!”

The confessed shooter Nikolas Cruz, 19, used an AR-15-style rifle to attack his former high school in Parkland, Fla., on Wednesday. On Friday, the FBI admitted that that it received a tip about Cruz last month that he had been behaving erratically and threatening to kill people, but “protocols were not followed.” Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered an “immediate review” of the Department of Justice and FBI after officials failed to follow up on that tip. Sessions called the review a “top priority.”

Trump also expressed his dismay with a comment his national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, made during the Munich Security Conference in Germany earlier in the day.

Following the unveiling of Mueller’s indictments of 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities on Friday, McMaster said “the evidence” of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election “is now incontrovertible.”

“General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems,” Trump tweeted. “Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!”

As Trump notes, the indictment Friday makes no allegations of collusion, saying, “some defendants, posing as U.S. persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is overseeing Mueller’s efforts, also said “there is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.”

Trump’s allegation that his Democratic rival in the election, Hillary Clinton, is guilty of corruption stems from reports and investigations into multiple controversies, including the “Trump dossier,” which contains salacious and unverified claims about his ties to Russia. The opposition research firm that commissioned the dossier was funded in part by Clinton and the Democratic National Committee.

One of the other controversies Trump referenced involves the “Uranium One” deal, which relates to Clinton’s alleged involvement while serving as secretary of state in a quid pro quo scheme that allowed Russia to buy a stake in U.S. uranium production in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation.

The Podesta Group, a longtime K Street fixture run for decades by Tony Podesta, brother of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, collapsed at the end of last year as the firm’s involvement in a lobbying campaign on behalf of pro-Russia forces in the Ukrainian government came under scrutiny from both the press and Mueller.

Trump’s hammering of the FBI comes as a time when the reputation of the federal law enforcement agency had already been facing stern question from Republicans and Trump supporters over concerns of political bias.

Trump is spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Springs, Fla.

“It is now clear that the warning signs were there and tips to the FBI were missed. We see the tragic consequences of those failures,” Jeff Sessions said in a statement. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Friday ordered an “immediate review” of the Department of Justice and FBI after officials failed to follow up on a tip that Nikolas Cruz, who shot up his former Florida high school on Wednesday, could be a threat.The FBI admitted that “protocols were not followed” in this case, and Sessions said a full inquiry would be made.

“It is now clear that the warning signs were there and tips to the FBI were missed. We see the tragic consequences of those failures,” Sessions said in a statement.

Sessions said he has ordered Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to conduct an “immediate review of our process” at the Justice Department and FBI “to ensure that we reach the highest level of prompt and effective response to indications of potential violence that come to us.”

“This includes more than just an error review but also a review of how we respond. This will include possible consultation with family members, mental health officials, school officials, and local law enforcement,” the attorney general said.

Sessions called the review a “top priority.”

In the meantime, Sessions reviewed how the department has been helping Parkland, Fla., and the surrounding areas in the wake of the deadly shooting. According to the department, there are 250 FBI staff in both Miami and Washington working on the case.

There are also 17 special agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms’s Miami office assisting, and 14 more agents from the ATF’s West Palm Beach and Fort Pierce field offices.

ATF has also completed an “urgent trace” of a recovered firearm through its National Tracing Center and is assisting in ballistics analysis, the Department of Justice said.

The Office for Victims of Crime “has funding available to support victim-assistance activities, such as crisis intervention and grief trauma counseling, and to reimburse victims for certain expenses related to the shooting,” and the Office for Victims of Crime and the Bureau of Justice Assistance “stand ready to assist the state and local authorities,” the DOJ said.

According to reports, Cruz — who has reportedly confessed to the shooting — was seen online posing with guns and knives on Instagram. A defense attorney has described him as “a broken child.”

The presenters, it turned out, had been given the wrong envelope by tabulators PwC, in this case the one awarding Emma Stone for best actress for her role in La La Land. The representatives from PwC, formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers, eventually corrected the mistake on air but it’s not clear yet how the wrong envelope ended up in the hands of the Bonnie and Clyde stars.

Oscars: How the Wrong Envelope Triggered a Best Picture Fiasco

According to Nigel Currie, an independent London-based branding specialist with decades’ worth of industry experience, this mistake is “as bad a mess-up as you could imagine.”

“They had a pretty simple job to do and messed it up spectacularly,” he said. “They will be in deep crisis talks on how to deal with it.”

Oscars Name Wrong Best Picture Winner: A Play-by-Play of the Epic Mix-Up

Brands go to extraordinary lengths to protect their image and reputation and to be seen as good corporate citizens. History is littered by examples when a hard-won reputation nosedives — from sporting legends Tiger Woods and Lance Armstrong to business giants like BP following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster and Volkswagen after its emissions cheating scandal.

Crisis managers say PwC has no other option than to front-up immediately and explain exactly what happened to contain the damage to its reputation and brand and plot a way forward where there’s no repeat.

“There will certainly have to be accounting for this error,” said Jeremy Robinson-Leon, principal and chief operating officer at New York-based public relations firm Group Gordon. “The onus will be on PwC, assuming they stay as partners, to institute controls to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

PwC, which originated in London over a century ago, was quick to apologize to the movies involved, Beatty, Dunaway and viewers, but has yet to fully explain what happened.

“The presenters had mistakenly been given the wrong category envelope and, when discovered, was immediately corrected,” it said in a statement. “We are currently investigating how this could have happened, and deeply regret that this occurred.”

In fact, it took over two minutes on air, during which time the La La Land team gave three acceptance speeches, before PwC corrected the mistake on stage.

Oscars Name Wrong Best Picture Winner: A Play-by-Play of the Epic Mix-Up

PwC’s representatives were Brian Cullinan, a partner at the firm — and, according to his bio on the company’s website, a Matt Damon lookalike — and Martha Ruiz, the second woman to serve as a PwC Oscars tabulator.

Cullinan is the lead partner for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, including the annual balloting for the Oscars ceremony. He has been part of the balloting team since 2014.

Ruiz, a 19-year veteran at PwC who specializes in providing tax compliance and advisory services to entertainment clients in southern California, joined Cullinan as the Oscars balloting co-leader in 2015.

In a promotional video on the company’s website ahead of Sunday’s show, Cullinan said he and Ruiz are the only two who knew who the winners were on the night of the awards.

“There are 24 categories. We have the winners in sealed envelopes that we hold and maintain throughout the evening and hand those to the presenters before they walk out on stage,” he said.

According to Mike Davies, PwC’s director of global communications, both Cullinan and Ruiz would have had a briefcase on either side of the auditorium to hand out the envelope for the category to be announced. Each briefcase would have had one envelope of each category winner.

In his remarks before the show, Cullinan had said PwC’s relationship with the Academy Awards is testament to the firm’s reputation in the market for being “a firm of integrity, of accuracy and confidentiality and all of those things that are really key to the role we have with the Academy in counting these ballots.”

“But I think it’s really symbolic of how we’re thought of beyond this role and how our clients think of us and I think it’s something we take very seriously and take a lot of pride in.”

Robinson-Leon said it was important to remember that counting ballots is not PwC’s core business but that it will have to be serious about dealing with the aftermath of Sunday’s embarrassment and media fallout.

“This can happen once and there will be relative forgiveness but it can’t happen twice,” said Group Gordon’s Robinson-Leon. “If they were to do this again, that could have an impact on the brand. If this is an isolated incident, the long-term impact on the brand will be minimal.”

It’s the age-old story: a solitary, unlikely individual is chosen by a higher power to transcend their limitations and achieve something impossible. Against all the odds, and despite the scorn of their peers, their deep beliefs allow them to do something others cannot. They endure, they prevail and, eventually, they go down in history, remembered with reverence and awe. They do not have a say, these chosen few, they must simply follow the call of duty. But they always prevail. And so it is that I today accept my own impossible burden: to write about why a Mel Gibson film should win the best picture Oscar.

For those of you who haven’t seen Hacksaw Ridge – which may include those opposed to individuals who make antisemitic remarks or engage in domestic abuse – let me set the thing up for you. Andrew Garfield plays Desmond Doss, a Seventh Day Adventist from Virginia. Hard-working Doss (the irony is lost on the Americans) is a patriot who volunteers to join the army after Pearl Harbor, but there’s a small complication: his religious beliefs prevent him from taking up arms.

As you might imagine, this doesn’t endear him to his superiors. Soon after reaching boot camp, Doss is forced into a court martial. It goes in his favour after a remarkable intervention by Doss’s alcoholic, wife-beating father who must, deep down, have a heart of gold. Roughly halfway into the film, Doss is reincorporated into the army and sent as a medic to the Japanese front.

The second half of the film is almost all on the battlefield. Doss’s division is tasked with taking the eponymous ridge, a crucial patch of land that stands atop a cliff edge in Okinawa and is filled to the brim with Japanese soldiers for whom no act is too inhuman. After an extended battle scene of Saving Private Ryan proportions and laden with typically Gibsonian gore, Doss finds himself stranded at the top of the cliff with nothing but his faith to protect him. And so, in a narrative shift I couldn’t help but find incredibly moving, he sets about spending what may be his last hours on Earth hauling as many wounded comrades down the cliff face as possible.

Spoiler alert: they’re not his last hours. The real Doss became the first American to receive the Medal of Honor without having fired a shot.

In itself, Hacksaw Ridge is a tale of classic American heroism of the sort that that the Academy traditionally loves, and indeed it has been nominated for six Oscars. But the film is more than a simple derring-do second world war flick, even one as epic and meticulously made as Steven Spielberg’s (which earned 11 Oscar nominations and won five). It is a film that could not have been made by anyone other than Gibson.

Gibson’s religious beliefs have provoked their own controversies, but there’s no denying they give him a perspective shared by few other film-makers. Both The Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto explored faith with a visceral fascination and while it’s sublimated here through the prism of a war movie, it produces distinctive results.

Doss’s trial by boot camp is less Full Metal Jacket and more Stations of the Cross, as he is made to endure pain and humiliation in the name of his unyielding beliefs, gradually winning the grudging respect of his peers. This, in turn, sets up a situation whereby the climactic battle scene comes once the real fighting has finished and features very little violence, just Doss tearing back and forth to drag his fellow soldiers off their battlefield.

The story that Gibson wants to tell, of religious faith providing values and perspective that can be transformative even in the most constrained of circumstances, makes for a war movie that is ventures above and beyond its genre. On those grounds, members of this critical court martial, I present the case for it winning the best picture award.

Academy Awards 2017: Complete list of Oscar winners and nominees

The 89th Academy Awards have come to an end, where “Moonlight” was awarded the best picture Oscar after it was erroneously awarded to “La La Land” in a moment of onstage confusion.

“La La Land” ended up with six Oscars including director and lead actress (Emma Stone).Casey Affleck took home the lead actor award for “Manchester By the Sea,” while “Moonlight’s” Mahershala Ali took home the trophy for supporting actor. Viola Davis won the supporting actress Oscar for her work in “Fences.”

Elsewhere, “O.J.: Made in America” was named the winner in the feature documentary category, while Iran’s “The Salesman” won the foreign-language film Oscar. The latter’s director, Asghar Farhadi, declined to attend the ceremony in the wake of the Trump administration’s travel ban.

How do your own Oscar red-carpet hits and misses stack up? Click through our gallery of favorite and not-so-favorite looks fresh from 89th Academy Awards. And for a running commentary of the night’s activities, visit our Oscars 2017 live updates and find out what Times Deputy Fashion Editor Adam Tschorn wrote about this year’s Oscars fashion.

Film Review: ‘Hacksaw Ridge’

Owen Gleiberman

Mel Gibson has made a movie about a pacifist who served nobly during WWII. It’s a testament to his filmmaking chops, and also an act of atonement that may succeed in bringing Gibson back.

Mel Gibson’s “Hacksaw Ridge” is a brutally effective, bristlingly idiosyncratic combat saga — the true story of a man of peace caught up in the inferno of World War II. It’s the first movie Gibson has directed since “Apocalypto,” 10 years ago (a film he’d already shot before the scandals that engulfed him), and this November, when it opens with a good chance of becoming a player during awards season, it will likely prove to be the first film in a decade that can mark his re-entry into the heart of the industry. Yet to say that “Hacksaw Ridge” finally leaves the Gibson scandals behind isn’t quite right; it has been made in their shadow. On some not-so-hard-to-read level, the film is conceived and presented as an act of atonement.

It should be obvious by now that the question of whether we can separate a popular actor or filmmaker’s off-screen life from his on-screen art doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all answer. Every instance is different. In the case of Mel Gibson, what we saw a number of years ago — first in his anti-Semitic comments, then in leaked recordings of his phone conversations — wasn’t simply “objectionable” thoughts, but a rage that suggested he had a temperament of emotional violence. It was one that reverberated through his two most prominent films as a director: “The Passion of the Christ,” a sensational and, in many quarters, unfairly disdained religious psychodrama that was a serious attempt to grapple with the stakes of Christ’s sacrifice, and “Apocalypto,” a fanciful but mesmerizing Mayan adventure steeped to the bone in the ambiguous allure of blood and death.

Like those two movies, “Hacksaw Ridge” is the work of a director possessed by the reality of violence as an unholy yet unavoidable truth. The film takes its title from a patch of battleground on the Japanese island of Okinawa, at the top of a 100-foot cliff, that’s all mud and branches and bunkers and foxholes, and where the fight, when it arrives (one hour into the movie), is a gruesome cataclysm of terror. Against the nonstop clatter of machine-gun fire, bombs and grenades explode with a relentless random force, blowing off limbs and blasting bodies in two, and fire is everywhere, erupting from the explosions and the tips of flame-throwers. Bullets rip through helmets and chests, and half-dead soldiers sprawl on the ground, their guts hanging out like hamburger.

Yet at the center of this modern hell of machine-tooled chaos and pain, there is Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield), a soldier who refuses to carry a gun because it is against his values. He’s a conscientious objector who acts as a medic. But because he’s every bit as devoted to serving in the war as he is to never once firing a bullet, he isn’t just caring for soldiers. He’s on the front lines, in the thick of the thick of it, without a weapon to protect him, and the film exalts not just his courage but his whole withdrawal from violence.

There really was a Desmond Doss, and the film sticks close to the facts of his story. Yet there’s still something very programmatic about “Hacksaw Ridge.” It immerses you in the violent madness of war — and, at the same time, it roots its drama in the impeccable valor of a man who, by his own grace, refuses to have anything to do with war. You could argue that Gibson, as a filmmaker, is having his bloody cake and eating it too, but the less cynical (and more accurate) way to put it might be that “Hacksaw Ridge” is a ritual of renunciation. The film stands on its own (if you’d never heard of Mel Gibson, it would work just fine), yet there’s no point in denying that it also works on the level of Gibsonian optics — that it speaks, on some political-metaphorical level, to the troubles that have defined him and that he’s now making a bid to transcend.

Will audiences, and the powers of Hollywood, finally meet him halfway? One reason the likely answer is “yes” is that “Hacksaw Ridge,” unlike such landmarks of combat cinema as “Saving Private Ryan,” “Platoon,” or “Full Metal Jacket,” isn’t simply a devastating war film. It is also a carefully carpentered drama of moral struggle that, for its first hour, feels like it could have been made in the 1950s. It’s a movie that spells out its themes with a kind of homespun user-friendly clarity. We see Desmond as a boy, growing up in a small town on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with a drunken abusive father (Hugo Weaving) and a mother (Rachel Griffiths) he’s driven to protect. Early on, Desmond gets into a fight with his brother and hits him in the head with a brick, and that incident, which leaves him reeling in sorrow, is the film’s version of one of those “Freudian” events that, in an old Hollywood movie, form the cornerstone of a person’s character.

It all seems a bit pat, but once Desmond grows up and Andrew Garfield starts playing him, the actor, all lanky charm and aw-shucks modesty, wins us over to seeing Desmond as country boy of captivating conviction. He knows nothing about girls, yet he woos a lovely local nurse (Teresa Palmer) with a fumbling sincerity that melts her resistance. And when the war arrives, he enlists, just like his brother, because he feels he has no choice not to. He’s a Seventh Day Adventist scarred by violence in his family; all of this plays a role in his pacifism, and his patriotism. That difficult dad of his is portrayed by Hugo Weaving as a haunted, complex man: a slovenly lush who tries to keep his family in line with the belt, and even the pistol, but also a decorated veteran of World War I who is desperate to keep his sons alive.

The film revs up its old-fashioned pulse when it lands at boot camp, where Desmond proves a contradiction that no one there — not his fellow soldiers, let alone the officers — can begin to fathom. He’s an eager, good-guy recruit who refuses to pick up a rifle even for target practice; they assume (wrongly) that he must be a coward. For a while, the film is strikingly reminiscent of the legendary Parris Island boot-camp sequence in “Full Metal Jacket,” only this is WWII, so it’s less nihilistic, with Vince Vaughn, as the drill sergeant, tossing off the wholesome version of the usual hazing insult zingers; he looks at Desmond and barks, “I have seen stalks of corn with better physiques.” (Hence Desmond’s Army nickname: Cornstalk.) “Hacksaw Ridge” often feels like an old studio-system platoon movie, but when Desmond’s pacifism becomes a political issue within the Army, it turns into a turbulent ethical melodrama — one can almost imagine it as a military courtroom drama directed by Otto Preminger and starring Montgomery Clift.

The question is whether the Army will allow Desmond, on his own terms, to remain a soldier — a conscientious objector who nevertheless wants to go to war. In a sense, the dramatic issue is a tad hazy, since Desmond announces, from the outset, that he wants to be a medic. Why can’t he just become one? But one of the strengths of “Hacksaw Ridge” is that it never caricatures the military brass’s objections to his plan. On the battlefront without a weapon, Desmond could conceivably be placing his fellow soldiers in harm’s way. His desire is noble, but it doesn’t fit in with Army regulations (and the Army, of course, is all about regulations). So he’s threatened with a court martial. The way this is finally resolved is quietly moving, not to mention just.

And then … the hell of war. It’s 1945, and the soldiers from Desmond’s platoon join forces with other troops to take Hacksaw Ridge, a crucial stretch — it looks like a Japanese version of the land above Normandy beach — that can lead them, potentially, to a victory in Okinawa, and the beginning of the end of the war. Gibson’s staging of the horror of combat generates enough shock and awe to earn comparison to the famous opening sequence of “Saving Private Ryan,” although it must be said that he borrows a lot from (and never matches) Spielberg’s virtuosity. Yet Gibson creates a blistering cinematic battleground all his own. Each time the fight breaks out again, it’s so relentless that you wonder how anyone could survive it.

The real story that “Hacksaw Ridge” is telling, of course, is Desmond’s, and Gibson stages it in straightforward anecdotes of compassion under fire, though without necessarily finding anything revelatory in the sight of a courageous medic administering to his fellow soldiers (and, at certain points, even to wounded Japanese), tying their blown-off limbs with tourniquets, giving them shots of morphine between murmured words of hope, and dragging them to safety. In a sense, the real drama is a nobility that won’t speak its name: It’s the depth of Desmond’s fearlessness, and his love for his soldier brothers, which we believe in, thanks to Garfield’s reverent performance, but which doesn’t create a combat drama that’s either scary or exciting enough to rival the classic war movies of our time. This isn’t a great one; it’s just a good one (which is nothing to sneeze at).

Desmond devises a way to save lives by tying a rope around the soldiers’ bodies and lowering them down the vertical stone cliff that borders Hacksaw Ridge, and using that technique he rescues a great many of them. Desmond Doss, who saved 75 men at Hacksaw Ridge, became the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor, and Gibson has made a movie that’s a fitting tribute to him (at the end, he features touching footage of the real Doss). But one surprise, given the drama of pacifism-versus-war that the movie has set up, is that there’s never a single scene in which Desmond has to consider violating his principles and picking up a weapon in order to save himself or somebody else. A scene like that would have brought the two sides of “Hacksaw Ridge,” the violent and the pacifist — and, implicitly, the two sides of Mel Gibson — crashing together. But that would have been a different movie. One that, in the end, was a little less safe.

Story 2: Mistakes Were Made — Obamacare, Income Taxes, and Payroll Taxes Should Be Repealed and Replaced By Letting American People Choose Their Own Health Insurance Plan and Health Saving Account and Pay A Fair Tax When They Buy New Goods and Services — Deadline May 1, 2017 — Videos

Story 1: The Inescapable Consequences of Obama The Great Divider — Black Milwaukee Mob Race Riots and Violence — Law of The Jungle vs. Law and Order — Sheriff David Clarke Blames Milwaukee Riots On Progressive Liberal Democrats Pushing Government Dependency on Welfare State — Case of Big Government or State Failures — Getting Out The Black Vote —

What You Won’t Hear About Black Lives Matter

Black Genocide – Maafa 21 – Full Length

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER

An independent journalist has quit reporting from Milwaukee, saying that the situation is too dangerous for anyone who looks like a white person to be walking the streets.

“For those that are perceivably white, it is just not safe to be here … that’s why I’m deciding to leave,” reporter Tim Pool said in a video. He posted the video to his Youtube page to inform fans that he was pulling out of Milwaukee because the rioters have targeted white people for attacks.

Pool, an award winning reporter who gained notice by his coverage of the Occupy Wall Street protests in Chicago back in 2011, said even though he is not strictly white, he said he felt in danger as the protests morphed from a complaint over a police shooting to an excuse to attack white people simply for being white.

Wearing his signature pullover ski cap, the reporter told his viewers that he became too frightened for his personal safety after seeing an 18-year-old white kid being “shot in the neck” as rioters screamed for whites to be targeted.

Pool insisted he understood the anger of the crowd. “These locals are angry and they’re angry for a reason,” he said. “But things started to get really tense later in the night when people started screaming ‘f**k white people,’ ‘white people suck,’” Pool said before describing several incidents where rioters were angrily egging on their fellows to attack both white people and reporters.

The young reporter went on to stress that it “isn’t every protester” actively calling for such violence but he is still leaving the city. “For those that are perceivably white, it is just not safe to be here. And that’s why I’m deciding to leave,” he said.

“For those that are wondering, I’m actually Korean,” Pool added, “I’m mixed [race], but, you know, most people down here, you know, when I was covering this didn’t, they don’t make that conclusion, they just looked at me and they start saying things about white people … but when you hear a group directing their anger and hate towards white people, and seeing several white people be attacked, and then finally an 18-year-old white kid is shot in the neck, that’s when I’m like, ‘OK, I shouldn’t be here,’ right?”

According to police, body camera footage shows 23-year-old Sylville K. Smith aim a gun at officers before he was shot dead by an African-American cop.

The incident sparked a wave of violent unrest that continued through Sunday night.

Milwaukee is the most segregated metropolitan area in the United States, with whites almost exclusively living in the suburbs.

Between 1950 and 1990 there was a “white flight” from Milwaukee County into Waukesha County and suburbs of Milwaukee.

Smith’s call for rioters to stop burning down their own communities is being reported by the media as a rebuke to those behind the violence.

However, in reality she is really just calling for the mayhem to be inflicted on the suburbs, or in other words – where all the white people live.

Milwaukee Alderman Khalif Rainey responded to the weekend’s violence by tacitly threatening more riots if “oppression,” “unemployment” and “injustice” wasn’t addressed. Rainey failed to explain what this had to do with an armed man with a lengthy criminal record aiming a gun at police officers.

As we reported yesterday, the white people brave enough to venture through Milwaukee on Saturday night were directly targeted for racial attacks, with rioters yelling, “they white, get their ass!,” as they attempting to drag white drivers out of their vehicles.

Don’t expect a DOJ investigation or a national media “hate crime” outcry any time soon.

New Unrest in Milwaukee After Police Shooting Sparks Violence

At least one person was wounded after shots were fired and protesters threw objects at police in Milwaukee late Sunday night, a day after violence erupted overnight in the wake of the fatal shooting of a man by police, authorities said.

Police said they were deploying armored vehicles to protect officers and to rescue a shooting victim, who was rushed to a hospital. At midnight Monday, police declared the protest an unlawful assembly and announced that they would begin making arrests.

The National Guard was activated Sunday, but Mayor Tom Barrett said they wouldn’t be deployed unless police deemed that they were needed. “I’m hopeful that that will not be necessary,” Barrett said. “But if it is necessary, we will do so.”

Barrett urged parents to keep their children home Sunday night.

“This is still a volatile situation. I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight,” he said, adding that a curfew would be enforced if needed. At least 150 specially trained officers will be patrolling in pairs Sunday night, police said.

Cars stand burned in the lot of a BP gas station Sunday after rioters clashed with Milwaukee police.Darren Hauck / Getty Images

The state is investigating the shooting, which killed Sylville K. Smith, 23, after he fled a police traffic stop on foot. Milwaukee Police Chief Edward said body camera video that hasn’t been released shows that there was a “credible threat” to the officer, who has been identified only as a 24-year-old African-American man.

At some point during the brief chase, Smith turned toward the officer with the gun in his hand, Flynn said, citing the video. Smith had a “lengthy arrest record” and 23 rounds in his gun, authorities said.

The officer has been placed on administrative duty pending an investigation. He has also left town in light of threats against him and other police officers, Flynn said.

Volunteers spent Sunday morning sweeping and picking up debris from the chaos of the night before — including bricks, bottle and bullet casings — after about 100 protesters clashed with a couple of dozen officers in a predominantly black north Milwaukee neighborhood.

Three men help clean Sunday after rioters clashed with Milwaukee police Department.Darren Hauck / Getty Images

“I commend the citizens who volunteered in clean-up efforts this morning,” Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said. This act of selfless caring sets a powerful example for Milwaukee’s youth and the entire community. I join Milwaukee’s leaders and citizens in calling for continued peace and prayer.”

Four businesses were destroyed or burned badly, seven squad cars were damaged, and four officers were injured in the chaosSaturday night. Seventeen people were arrested, and 48 shots or series of shots were fired, according to police. A teenage girl was injured by a stray bullet, police said.

Officials said no shots were fired by police, and there have been no reports of use of force by officers.

“Last night was unlike anything I have seen in my adult life in this city,” Barrett said. “I’m very proud of the way our police officers and firefighters responded.”

The protesters were largely black, and Alderman Khalif Rainey — who represents the district — said early Sunday that the city’s black residents are “tired of living under this oppression.”

“This entire community has sat back and witnessed how Milwaukee, Wisconsin, has become the worst place to live for African-Americans in the entire country,” Rainey said at the end of a news conference at which Barrett pleaded for calm. “Now this is a warning cry. Where do we go from here? Where do we go as a community from here?

Milwaukee was beset by protests and calls for police reform after an officer fatally shot Dontre Hamilton, a mentally ill black man, in 2014. In December, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it would work with Milwaukee police on reforms.

Flynn had asked for what’s known as a collaborative reform process after the federal government said it wouldn’t pursue criminal civil rights charges against the officer.

Black Lives Matter Is Pushing Our Cities Back to the Brink

by DAVID FRENCH August 15, 2016 2:46 PM

To listen to some of the protesters, the Milwaukee shooting was the excuse for the riot, not the reason.

What happens when a city combines body cameras, a “model” law requiring independent investigations of police shootings, and a police chief so committed to reforming the way cops interact with the black community that he’s profiled on public radio’s immensely popular program This American Life? What happens in that same city when a black cop shoots an armed black suspect toting a stolen gun — a gun the suspect reportedly refused to put on the ground despite repeated commands? Do the legal reforms increase community trust? Or does the city erupt in riots and violence?

If you chose “riots and violence,” you’re correct.That’s exactly what happened in Milwaukee this weekend in response to the police shooting of Sylville Smith. Police pulled Smith over on Saturday afternoon, he fled from the scene, and police gave chase. Smith was carrying a stolen handgun. An officer with six years’ experience caught Smith, reportedly ordered him to drop the gun, and opened fire when Smith failed to comply, shooting him the in the chest and arm. Smith died.

According to police, the shooting was caught on camera. (The footage has not yet been released.) But rather than wait for the evidence or for any semblance of an investigation, hundreds of Milwaukee residents rioted, burning police cars, looting stores, and attacking police. Indeed, to listen to some of the protesters and political leaders, the shooting was merely the excuse for the riot, not the justification. Here’s one protester telling reporters that riots are happening because “rich people, they got all this money, and they not . . . trying to give us none.”

And city alderman Khalif Rainey said that the riots were “byproducts” of “the injustice, the unemployment, the under-education” that he says makes Milwaukee the “worst place to live for African-Americans in the entire country.” He ended with an ominous warning: “Rectify this immediately because, if you don’t, this vision of downtown, all of that, you one day away. You one day away.”

Then, of course, Black Lives Matter leader Deray McKesson added his own helpful thoughts — without any meaningful evidence that the police shooting was unlawful: If radical activists have their way, American cities will be ungovernable. Any police shooting will excuse a riot, even without lies like “hands up, don’t shoot.” In such an environment, police reforms are less about improving police–community relations or about making poor communities safe than they are about the raw exercise of power.

Indeed, the results speak for themselves. Despite its reforms, Milwaukee has been wracked by levels of homicide not seen since the bad days of the early 1990s. Last year, the number of fatal shootings, disproportionately black-on-black violence, hit a 22-year high: (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel) This year is set to be terrible as well, with 83 homicides already. More than three-quarters of the victims are black, and they are not being killed by cops.

So, yes, Alderman Rainey, Milwaukee may be a terrible place for African Americans, but it is not because of the police. Here is the sobering reality of modern urban life. If police use the kinds of aggressive policing techniques that have been part of the decades-old solution to the soaring crime rates of the 1980s and early 1990s, they increase interactions with the community and inevitably increase the potential for abuse.

If, however, the police back off appreciably, decreasing the number of arrests and stops, then, as we’ve seen in city after city, homicide rates soar. But being an activist means never saying you’re sorry, so in either case oppression and death are the cops’ fault. Police aggressively, and the police are to blame for strained community relations. Back off, and the police are to blame for the chaos and violence that ensues.

The destructiveness of Black Lives Matter lies in its fundamental inability to recognize that the primary responsibility for peace and justice within black communities belongs to the community itself. The police are not making black people kill each other at alarming rates. The police are not making black people drop out of school or black men father children out of wedlock. Yet it’s remarkable the extent to which anti-police activists simply take those factors as givens and then demand that police know exactly how to navigate and defuse the resulting, inevitable social pathologies.

In other words, activists demand the impossible and then riot when their impossible demands aren’t met. Unless cooler heads prevail, they will continue to push our cities back to the brink, back to the bad old days when murder rates were so high that people openly wondered if our great urban communities were doomed to fail. Want to save our cities? Then reject the radicals. In the name of justice, they bring chaos. In the name of peace, they bring death. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/438992/milwaukee-riot-black-lives-matter-police-homicide-rate-khalif-rainey

Story 2: Hillary Clinton Wants More of The Same Spending on Government Programs, More of The Status Quo — No Hope, No Change, More Government Dependency On The Road To Serfdom — Videos

Long Lines At Airport TSA Security Checks

Fmr. TSA official on the lack of security checks for employees at U.S. airports

Airports Dealing With Long Lines & “Woefully Understaffed” TSA

TSA Long Airport Lines Fake News and Grand Social Experiments

The TSA is demanding more overtime pay ahead of the busy summer travel season.

New Report Shows Frequent TSA Failures, Tells Same Old Story

Public Reaches Breaking Point With TSA – #NewWorldNextWeek

John Stossel – TSA Vs Private Airport Screeners

TSA losing out as Florida airports move to private screeners for security

Adam Ruins Everything – Why the TSA Doesn’t Stop Terrorist Attacks

TSA starts stopping people on US highways without warrants or probable cause

Flawless Airline Security on Israeli Planes

El Al Airlines in Israel has had a 100% success rating on its airline security for more than three decades: No hijackings, no bombings, no failed attempts aboard a flight.

TSA Harasses Little Girl For Dangerous Capri Sun

Investigation Proves TSA Screeners Are HORRIBLE At Their Jobs

Girl in Wheelchair, 3, Detained by TSA: Caught on Tape

TSA Singles Out Sexy Women for Multiple Body Scans?

Israel Airport Security

Israel’s national airline hasn’t had a terror incident for decades – it’s considered one of the safest worldwide. That’s because Israel employs unconventional methods that include profiling. When the U.S. TSA began implementing body scans and searches, a call for Israeli tactics to be implemented arose.

TSA Security Failures Lead to Calls for Privatization

States Should Reject the REAL ID Law

REAL ID: TSA WILL FORCE AIRLINE PASSENGERS TO SHOW NATIONAL ID BEFORE FLYING IN 2016

Abolish the Transportation Security Administration (David Rittgers)

TSA is A Joke says Former Head of Israeli Airport Security

REAL ID: Fear, Federalism, and the U.S. National ID Program (Jim Harper)

The REAL ID Act is a law that Congress passed without hearings in 2005, which sought to make state driver licensing into a national ID system. The law tries to coerce state compliance with federal identification standards by threatening that the Transportation Security Administration will refuse driver’s licenses and IDs from noncompliant states when Americans go to travel. This fall, a Department of Homeland Security campaign to stir up fears that the TSA will refuse drivers licenses at airports across America was so successful that passport offices in New Mexico were swamped, and a DHS official recently published a piece in the Albuquerque Journal backtracking on a widely reported January 2016 deadline for state compliance.

Mission Creep at the TSA and the Case for Privatization (Khaliah Barnes)

Sen. Rand Paul in TSA Pat-Down Standoff Video- wake up it’s time to get rid of the tsa!!!

Ron Paul: Get rid of the TSA, “Privatize Airport Security”.

DHS: Progress in 2015, Goals for 2016 — Secretary Jeh C. Johnson

Jeff Sessions Shreds Jeh Johnson DHS Immigration Policy…

Greyson Chance – Waiting Outside The Lines

The Transportation Security Administration’s FY2017 Budget Request

Nightmarish Lines Continue At Airport Security Checkpoints

Travelers flying out of Chicago just can’t catch a break. With increasingly long lines to get through security at the city’s airports, many travelers have been missing their flights, and some ended up sleeping at O’Hare International Airport on Sunday.

American Airlines put out cots for fewer than 100 travelers who missed their flights Sunday night due to the long lines at TSA security checkpoints.

Adrian Petra said he missed his flight after standing in line for 2 hours and 20 minutes.

The TSA has been urging passengers to get to the airport at least two hours early for domestic flights, and three hours early for international flights. However, some passengers have said that is not enough time to get through security and still make their flight.

American Airlines said some 4,000 passengers have missed flights at O’Hare since February because of the long wait times.

The TSA has blamed the long waits at security on a shortage of screeners, due to federal budget cuts. The agency also has said airlines are seeing record travel volume, meaning more passengers in lines.

American Airlines spokeswoman Leslie Scott sounded off on the security issues.

“We are frustrated. We know our passengers are frustrated, and our employees are really frustrated,” she said.

Scott said, on Sunday alone, American had to delay 30 flights, and about 450 passengers missed their flights due to the security lines.

Nearly 800 people missed American flights from O’Hare in the last week alone, the most of any airport where American operates.

Lines have been so bad at Terminal 3 in the mornings and afternoons that American Airlines workers have removed some kiosks to make room.

Scott said the company plans to hire people this week to try to help reduce the excruciatingly long waits for security.

“We will be hiring employees who will do non-security TSA functions; so, the people who tell you to take the liquids out of your bags, take your laptop out,” she said.

American Airlines said passengers who get through security but miss their flights will be rebooked for no charge.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has urged the TSA to increase the number of dogs at security checkpoints. He said they could cut wait times in half.

The head of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA, said it will immediately increase the use of overtime and work to bring in more security officers.

The TSA also has been urging travelers to enroll in its Precheck pgrogram, or other similar programs, which can significantly reduce wait times.

Complaints Over Airport Security Delays Surged 10-Fold in March

By Alan Levin

Frustrated travelers are turning to the complaint box in growing numbers as long lines and delays getting through airport security result in missed flights.
Complaints filed on such topics as courtesy and processing time surged in March to the highest levels in the past year, according to the Department of Transportation’s monthly Air Travel Consumer Report released Monday.
Reports filed over the time it took U.S. Transportation Security Administration to screen passengers grew more than 10-fold, to 513 this past March from 48 in March 2015. Concern about lack of courtesy by TSA screeners increased more than three-fold, to 1,012 in March from 294 a year ago.
Other categories of complaints on the screening process and travelers’ personal property were also at the highest levels recorded in the past year, according to DOT. A spokesman for the TSA didn’t immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment on Monday’s report.
The TSA is trying to get 500 new airport screeners through training and onto the job by the end of June as a growth in travelers has led to longer lines at airports. Almost 6,800 people traveling on American Airlines missed flights in March due to delays at TSA checkpoints, airline spokesman Casey Norton said in an interview earlier this month.
The issue has been exacerbated because the TSA was forced to revamp and tighten security after a series of reports last year showing it missed weapons and explosives in bags.
Some members of Congress have complained that TSA failed to plan for the longer lines, while the agency has said its screener workforce has declined under its annual budget.
Staffing authorized by Congress for the TSA, which operates security at airports across the country, has fallen almost 10 percent from 47,147 full-time employees in 2013 to 42,525 this year, according to agency data. At the same time, the volume of passengers rose 15 percent from 643 million to an estimated 740 million this year, according to TSA.

TSA blames you for longer lines at airport security checkpoints

By NBC4 Staff and Associated Press

WASHINGTON (WCMH/AP) — Facing a growing backlash over extremely long airport security lines, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Friday asked fliers “to be patient” as the government takes steps to get them onto planes more quickly.

Travelers across the country have endured lengthy lines, some snaking up and down escalators, or through food courts, and into terminal lobbies. At some airports, lines during peak hours have topped 90 minutes. Airlines have reported holding planes at gates to wait for passengers to clear security.

Johnson said the government has a plan to deal with the lines but won’t neglect its duty to stop terrorists.

“Our job is to keep the American people safe,” Johnson told reporters at a news conference. “We’re not going to compromise aviation security in the face of this.”

The comments reflect a statement released earlier this week after long lines were reported at Newark, JFK and LaGuardia airport security checkpoints. When asked about those long lines, the TSA essentially blamed you in a press release, specifically passengers who bring too many carry-on items:

There are several factors that have caused checkpoint lines to take longer to screen passengers… including more people traveling with carry-on bags, in many cases bringing more than the airline industry standard of one carry-on bag and one personal item per traveler;

Passenger preparedness can have a significant impact on wait times at security checkpoints nationwide…Individuals who come to the TSA checkpoint unprepared for a trip can have a negative impact on the time it takes to complete the screening process.”

The Transportation Security Administration has fewer screeners and has tightened security procedures. Meanwhile, more people are flying. Airlines and the TSA have been warning customers to arrive at the airport two hours in advance, but with summer travel season approaching even that might not be enough.

In the past three years, the TSA and Congress cut the number of front-line screeners by 4,622 — or about 10 percent — on expectations that an expedited screening program called PreCheck would speed up the lines. However, not enough people enrolled for TSA to realize the anticipated efficiencies.

Congress this week did agree to shift $34 million in TSA funding forward, allowing the agency to pay overtime to its existing staff and hire an extra 768 screeners by June 15 to bring it up to the congressionally mandated ceiling of 42,525.

But that might barely make a dent on the lines. This week, the president of the union representing the TSA officers sent a letter to congressional leaders suggesting that 6,000 additional screeners are needed. J. David Cox, Sr. wrote that the $34 million just provides “a small amount of temporary relief for travelers” and defers dealing with the long-term, larger problem.

Additionally, the agency loses about 100 screeners a week through attrition.

Airlines and airports have hired extra workers to handle non-security tasks at checkpoints — such as returning empty bins to the beginning of the line — as part of an effort to free up as many TSA employees to handle passenger screening.

The help can’t come quickly enough.

Friday morning, American Airlines held at least five flights at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport because of passengers stuck at security lines, according to airline spokesman Ross Feinstein.

On the 7:20 a.m. flight to Las Vegas, 52 of the 160 passengers were not onboard 10 minutes before departure. American held the plane an extra 13 minutes past its scheduled pushback from the gate, allowing 23 passengers to hop onboard. However, 29 still missed the jet and arrived on later flights.

A few gates away, 27 passengers missed their flight to Orlando.

At another American hub, Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, security lines peaked at one hour and 45 minutes on Thursday.

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian told The Associated Press Thursday that “the longer lines get the more passengers are going to miss flights and there’s not much you can do about that.”

File- This Oct. 22, 2013, file photo shows passengers walking through the pre-check lane at Milwaukee’s Mitchell International Airport. The PreCheck program allows previously vetted fliers to use special lanes at the checkpoint. Shoes, belts and light jackets stay on. Laptops and liquids stay in bags. And these fliers go through standard metal detectors rather than the explosive-detecting full-body scanners most pass through. (Mike De Sisti/Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel via AP)

The biggest help to ease lines is to have more fliers enroll in the PreCheck program.

The TSA offered Congress a lofty goal of having 25 million fliers enrolled in the program. But as of March 1, only 9.3 million people were PreCheck members. Applicants must pay $85 to $100 every five years. Most must also trek to the airport for an interview before being accepted. Getting once-a-year fliers to join has been a challenge.

Johnson Friday said that 10,000 people applied for PreCheck Thursday, up from 8,500 a day in April and 7,500 in March. Still, at that pace, it will take more than four years to reach 25 million members.

The head of the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the TSA, asked Congress last week to be able to shift $34 million to increase the number of officers at airports.

Here’s how the TSA will spend the money: Around $26 million would pay for additional overtime and part-time hours, and around $8 million would go toward the hiring of 768 officers this month. The TSA had originally planned to hire the new workers by September.

The extra staff is coming just in time.

The summer months bring an influx of vacationers, who tend to bog down lines even more since they tend not fly often and aren’t as familiar with the screening procedures.

Expect epic lines at the airport this summer

by Kathryn Vasel

Long wait times. Missed flights.

Airport security has been brutal lately, and it could get even worse this summer.

The recovering economy and low airfare prices have led to a flood of air travelers creating marathon security lines at airports across the country, with some travelers complaining of wait times lasting at least an hour.

The increased flow is testing the capacity of airport security, and some say the TSA is coming up short on security staff to handle the additional traffic.

“The issue is man power. There are not enough TSA agents to handle the load of summer travelers,” said Bruce Schneier, a security expert.

The TSA is now recommending fliers get to the airport up to two hours ahead of their departure time, even for domestic flights.

The TSA has been increasing its hiring and training programs for security workers.

And this week, the head of Homeland Security, which includes the TSA, announced plans to add more security officers and dogs to help accelerate the screening process at the busiest airports this summer.

On Friday, a TSA spokesperson told CNNMoney the agency has requested authority from Congress to move $34 million in funding to boost staff levels to reduce security wait times. The money would pay for additional overtime and part-time hours, and accelerated hiring of 768 new TSA officers.

But for some airports, the added security could be too little, too late.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International had its biggest year in 2015 with 101 million fliers moving through the airport.

The security situation got so bad that the airport’s general manager sent a letter to the head of TSA in February threatening to use private security contractors to screen passengers. The letter mentioned a recent 7.5% TSA staff increase, but said that it was “late and inadequate” and that the airport is “dreading the outcome of summer 2016.”

Orlando International is also experiencing a surge in travelers. The airport is now handling 40 million passengers in a terminal built for 24 million as it undergoes a major expansion.

An airport spokesperson said its staff is working with the TSA to help speed up wait times, but security staffing is out of the airport’s control.

“We’ve been staring at this iceberg awhile,” said Jonathan Grella, executive vice president of public affairs at US Travel Association. “I am encouraged [with the latest move from Homeland Security], but that doesn’t mean that it won’t be challenging, especially in the early parts of the summer.”

History and organization

The TSA was created as a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks. Its first administrator, John Magaw, was nominated by President Bush on December 10, 2001, and confirmed by the Senate the following January. The agency’s proponents, including Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, argued that only a single federal agency would better protect air travel than the private companies who operated under contract to single airlines or groups of airlines that used a given terminal facility.

With state, local, and regional partners,[who?] the TSA oversees security for highways, railroads, buses, mass transit systems, pipelines and ports. However, the bulk of the TSA’s efforts are in aviation security. The TSA is responsible for screening passengers and baggage at more than 450 U.S. airports.[4]

Employees

Transportation Security Officers: The TSA employs around 47,000 Transportation Security Officers (TSOs), often referred to as screeners or agents. They screen people and property and control entry and exit points in airports. They also watch several areas before and beyond checkpoints.[11][12] TSOs carry no weapons, and are not permitted to use force, nor do they have the power to arrest.[13]

As of September 2014 the starting salary for a TSO is $25,773 to $38,660[14] per year, not including locality pay (contiguous 48 states) or cost of living allowancein Hawaii and Alaska. A handful of airports also have a retention bonus of up to 35%.[15] This is more than what private screeners were paid.[16]

TSA security search

Behavior Detection Officers: In 2003, the TSA implemented the Screening of Passengers by Observation Technique (SPOT), which expanded across the United States in 2007. In this program, Behavior Detection Officers (BDOs), who are TSOs, observe passengers as they go through security checkpoints, looking for behaviors that might indicate a higher risk. Such passengers are subject to additional screening.[17]

This program has led to concerns about, and allegations of racial profiling.[18][19] According to the TSA, SPOT screening officers are trained to observe behaviors only and not a person’s appearance, race, ethnicity or religion.[20]

The TSA program was reviewed in 2013 by the federal government’s Government Accountability Office, which recommended cutting funds for it because there was no proof of its effectiveness.[21] The JASON scientific advisory group has also said that “no scientific evidence exists to support the detection or inference of future behavior, including intent.”[22]

National Explosives Detection Canine Teams Program: These trainers prepare dogs and handlers to serve as mobile teams that can quickly find dangerous materials. As of June 2008, the TSA had trained about 430 canine teams, with 370 deployed to airports and 56 deployed to mass transit systems.[26]

Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams: VIPR teams started in 2005 and involved Federal Air Marshals and other TSA crew working outside of the airport environment, at train stations, ports, truck weigh stations, special events, and other places. There has been some controversy and congressional criticism for problems such as the July 3, 2007 holiday screenings. In 2011, Amtrak police chief John O’Connor moved to temporarily ban VIPR teams from Amtrak property. As of 2011, VIPR team operations were being conducted at a rate of 8,000 per year.[27]

The TSA also oversees the Federal Flight Deck Officer program, which gives some pilots permission to carry firearms in the cockpit as a defense against hijackers.

Uniforms

In 2008, TSA officers began wearing new uniforms that have a blue-gray 65/35 polyester/cotton blend duty shirt, black pants, a wider black belt, and optional short-sleeved shirts and black vests (for seasonal reasons).[28] The first airport to introduce the new uniforms was Baltimore-Washington International Airport. Starting on September 11, 2008, all TSOs began wearing the new uniform. One stripe on each shoulder board denotes a TSO, two stripes a Lead TSO, and three a Supervisory TSO.

TSOs are issued badges similar to those carried by police officers, which has led to complaints from the latter group.[29]

2013 LAX shooting

On Friday, November 1, 2013, TSA officer Gerardo I. Hernandez, age 39, was shot and killed by a lone gunman at the Los Angeles International Airport. Law enforcement officials identified the suspect as 23-year-old Paul Anthony Ciancia who was shot and wounded by law enforcement officers before being taken into custody.[30] Ciancia was wearing fatigues and carrying a bag containing a hand-written note that said he “wanted to kill TSA and pigs”. Hernandez is the first TSA officer to be killed on the job.

2015 New Orleans airport attack

On March 21, 2015 63-year-old Richard White entered the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport armed with Molotov cocktails, a gasoline lighter, and a machete. White promptly began assaulting passengers and Transportation Security Administration officers by spraying them with a can of wasp killer, then drew his machete and ran through a metal detector. Jefferson Parish‘s deputy sheriff shot and killed White as he was chasing a TSA officer with his machete.[31]

Screening processes and regulations

Passenger and carry-on screening

Identification requirements

The TSA requires that passengers show a valid ID at the security checkpoint before boarding their flight. Valid forms of identification include passports from the U.S. or a foreign government, state-issued photo identification, or military ID. Passengers that do not have ID may still be allowed to fly if their identity can be verified through an alternate way.[36]

Passenger names are compared against the No Fly List, a list of about 21,000 names of suspected terrorists who are not allowed to board.[37] Passenger names are also compared against a longer list of “selectees”, passengers whose names match names from this list receive a more thorough screening before being potentially allowed to board.[38] The effectiveness of the lists has been widely criticized on the basis of errors in how those lists are maintained,[39] for concerns that the lists are unconstitutional, and for its ineffectiveness at stopping Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who attempted to detonate plastic explosives in his underwear, from boarding an aircraft.[40] At the airport security checkpoint, passengers are screened to ensure they are not carrying prohibited items. These include most sorts of sharp objects, many sporting goods such as baseball bats and hockey sticks, guns or other weapons, many sorts of tools, flammable liquids (except for conventional lighters), many forms of chemicals and paint.[41] In addition, passengers are limited to 3.4 US fluid ounces (100 ml) of almost any liquid or gel, which must be presented at the checkpoint in a clear, one-quart zip-top bag.[42] These restrictions on liquids were a reaction to the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot.

The number of passengers who have attempted to bring firearms onto airplanes in their carry-on bags has increased in recent years, from 976 in 2009 to 1,813 in 2013, according to the TSA. This is part of the reason security measures, which travelers often find cumbersome, are so thorough.[43] Up to 70 percent of the weapons passengers attempt to bring on-board are never found by screeners.[44] Firearms can be legally checked in checked luggage on domestic flights.[45]

In some cases, government leaders, members of the US military and law-enforcement officials are allowed to bypass security screening.[46][47]

In October 2013, the TSA announced that it had begun searching a wide variety of government and private databases for information about passengers before they arrive at the airport. They did not say which databases were involved, but TSA has access to past travel itineraries, property records, physical characteristics, law enforcement and intelligence information, among others.[53]

Large printer cartridges ban

After the October 2010 cargo planes bomb plot, in which cargo containing laser printers with toner cartridges filled with explosives were discovered on separate cargo planes, the U.S. prohibited passengers from carrying certain printer cartridges on flights.[54] The TSA said it would ban toner and ink cartridges weighing over 16 ounces (453 grams) from all passenger flights.[55][56] The ban applies to both carry-on bags and checked bags, and does not affect average travelers, whose toner cartridges are generally lighter.[56]

November 2010 enhanced screening procedures

Beginning in November 2010, TSA added new enhanced screening procedures. Passengers are required to choose between an enhanced patdown, allowing TSOs to more thoroughly check areas on the body such as waistbands, groin, and inner thigh.[46] or instead to be imaged by the use of a full body scanner (that is, eitherbackscatter X-ray or millimeter wave detection machines) in order to fly. TSA encouraged flyers to choose scanners by emphasizing the “intrusive” nature of the “enhanced” patdown. These changes were said to be made in reaction to the Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab bombing attempt.[57]

Pat-downs

The new pat-down procedures, which were originally not made public,[58] “routinely involve the touching of buttocks and genitals”[59][60][61] as well as breasts.[62]These procedures were controversial, and in a November poll, 50% of those polled felt that the new pat-down procedures were too extreme, with 48% feeling them justified.[63] A number of publicized incidents created a public outcry against the invasiveness of the pat-down techniques,[64][65][66] in which women’s breasts and the genital areas of all passengers are patted.[67] Pat-downs are carried out by agents of the same gender the passenger presents at the screening.[68]

Passengers are directed to hold their hands above their heads for a few seconds while front and back images are created.[77] If the operator sees an anomaly on the scanner, or if other problems occur, the passenger will also have to receive the pat-down.

Full body scanners have also proven controversial due to privacy and health concerns.

The American Civil Liberties Union has called the scanners a “virtual strip search.”[78] Female passengers have complained that they are often singled out for scanning, and a review of TSA records by a local CBS affiliate in Dallas found “a pattern of women who believe that there was nothing random about the way they were selected for extra screening.”[79]

The TSA, on their website, states that they have “implemented strict measures to protect passenger privacy which is ensured through the anonymity of the image,”[80] and additionally states that these technologies “cannot store, print, transmit or save the image, and the image is automatically deleted from the system after it is cleared by the remotely located security officer”.[81] This claim, however, was proven false after multiple incidents involving leaked images. The machines do in fact have the ability to “save” the images and while this function is purported to be “turned off” by the TSA in screenings, TSA Air Marshalls and training facilities have the save function turned on.[82][83][84]

As early as 2010, the TSA began to test scanners that would produce less intrusive “stick figures”.[85] In February 2011, the TSA began testing new software on the millimeter wave machines already used at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport that automatically detects potential threats on a passenger without the need for having an officer review actual images. Instead, one generic figure is used for all passengers and small yellow boxes are placed on areas of the body requiring additional screening.[86] The TSA announced in 2013 that the Rapiscan’s backscatter scanners would no longer be used, due to the fact that the manufacturer of the machines could not produce “privacy software” to abstract the near-nude images that agents view and turn them into stick like figures. The TSA will continue to use other full body scanners.[87]

Health concerns have been raised about both scanning technologies.

With regards to exposure to radiation emitted by backscatter X-rays, and there are fears that people will be exposed to a “dangerous level of radiation if they get backscattered too often” A petition by both scientists and pilots argue that the screening machines are safe.[88] Ionizing radiation is considered a non-threshold carcinogen, but it is difficult to quantify the risk of low radiation exposures.[89]Active millimeter wave scanners emit radiation which is non-ionizing, does not have enough energy to directly damage DNA, and is not known to begenotoxic.[90][91][92]

Reverse screenings

In April 2016, TSA Administrator, Peter V. Neffenger told a Senate committee that small airports had the option to use “reverse screening” – a system where passengers are not screened before boarding the aircraft at departure, but instead are screened upon arrival at the destination. The procedure is intended to save costs at airports with a limited number of fights.[93]

Reactions

After the November 2010 initiation of enhanced screening procedures of all airline passengers and flight crews, the US Airline Pilots Association issued a press release stating that pilots should not submit to full body scanners because of unknown radiation risks and calling for strict guidelines for pat-downs of pilots, including evaluation of their fitness for duty after the pat-down, given the stressful nature of pat-downs.[67][94] Two airline pilots filed suit against the procedures.[95]

On July 2, 2010, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) filed a lawsuit in federal court asking to halt the use of full body scanners by the TSA on Fourth amendment grounds, and arguing that the TSA had failed to allow a public notice and rule making period. In July 2011, the D.C. Circuit court of appeals ruled that the TSA did violate the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to allowing a public notice and comment rule making period. The Court ordered the agency to “promptly” undertake a public notice and comment rule making. In July 2012, EPIC returned to court and asked the court to force enforcement; in August, the court granted the request to compel the TSA to explain its actions by the end of the month.[102] The agency responded on August 30, saying that there was ““no basis whatsoever for (The DC Circuit Court’s) assertion that TSA has delayed implementing this court’s mandate,” and said it was awaiting approval from the Department of Homeland Security before the hearings take place. The TSA also said that it was having “staffing issues” regarding the issue, but expects to begin hearings in February 2013.[103] The comment period began on March 25, 2013[104][105] and closed on June 25, 2013, with over 90% of the comments against the scanners.[105]As of October, 2015, no report has been issued.

Two separate Internet campaigns promoted a “National Opt-Out Day,” the day before Thanksgiving, urging travelers to “opt out” of the scanner and insist on a pat-down.[106] The enhanced pat-down procedures were also the genesis of the “Don’t touch my junkmeme“.[107]

Checked baggage

Luggage locks

In order to be able to search passenger baggage for security screening, the TSA will cut or otherwise disable locks they cannot open themselves. The agency authorized two companies to create padlocks, lockable straps, and luggage with built-in locks that can be opened and relocked by tools and information supplied by the lock manufacturers to the TSA. These areTravel Sentry and Safe Skies Locks.[108] TSA agents sometimes cut these locks off instead of opening them, and TSA received over 3500 complaints in 2011 about locks being tampered with.[109] Travel journalist and National Geographic Traveler editor Christopher Elliott describes these locks as “useless” at protecting the goods within,[110] whereas SmarterTravel wrote in early 2010 that the “jury is out on their effectiveness”, while noting how easy they are to open.[111]

In November 2014, The Washington Post inadvertently published a photograph of all seven of the TSA master keys in an article[112] about TSA baggage handling. The photograph was later removed from the original Washington Post article, but it still appears in some syndicated copies of the article.[113] On August 22, 2015, Twitter user Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange) noticed the photograph and posted it on Twitter,[114] and from there it quickly spread across social media, gaining the attention of news sites.[115] Using the photograph, security researchers and members of the public have been able to reproduce working copies of the master keys using 3D printing techniques.[116][117] The incident has prompted discussion about the security implications of using master keys.[115]

The TSA has been criticized[118] for an increase in baggage theft after its inception. Reported thefts include both valuable and dangerous goods, such as laptops, jewelry[119] guns,[120] and knives.[121] Such thefts have raised concerns that the same access might allow bombs to be placed aboard aircraft.[122]

In 2004, over 17,000 claims of baggage theft were reported.[119] As of 2004, 60 screeners had been arrested for baggage theft,[119] a number which had grown to 200 screeners by 2008.[123] 11,700 theft and damage claims were reported to the TSA in 2009, a drop from 26,500 in 2004, which was attributed to the installation of cameras and conveyor belts in airports.[124] A total of 25,016 thefts were reported over the five-year period from 2010 to 2014.[125]

As of 2011, the TSA employs about 60,000 screeners in total (counting both baggage and passenger screening)[126] and approximately 500 TSA agents have been fired or suspended for stealing from passenger luggage since the agency’s creation in November 2001. The airports with the most reported thefts from 2010 to 2014 were JFK, followed by LAX and MCO.[125]

In 2008 an investigative report by WTAE in Pittsburgh discovered that despite over 400 reports of baggage theft, about half of which the TSA reimbursed passengers for, not a single arrest had been made.[127] The TSA does not, as a matter of policy, share baggage theft reports with local police departments.[127]

In September 2012, ABC News interviewed former TSA agent Pythias Brown, who has admitted to stealing more than $800,000 worth of items during his employment with the agency. Brown stated that it was “very convenient to steal” and poor morale within the agency is what causes agents to steal from passengers.[128]

The TSA has also been criticized for not responding properly to theft and failing to reimburse passengers for stolen goods. For example, between 2011 and 2012, passengers at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport reported $300,000 in property lost or damaged by the TSA. The agency only reimbursed $35,000 of those claims.[129] Similar statistics were found at Jacksonville International Airport – passengers reported $22,000 worth of goods missing or damaged over the course of 15 months. The TSA only reimbursed $800.[130]

A report on undercover operations conducted in October 2006 at Newark Liberty International Airport was leaked to the press. The screeners had failed 20 of 22 undercover security tests, missing numerous guns and bombs. The Government Accountability Office had previously pointed to repeated covert test failures by TSA personnel.[136][137] Revealing the results of covert tests is against TSA policy, and the agency responded by initiating an internal probe to discover the source of the leak.[138]

In December 2010, ABC News Houston reported in an article about a man who accidentally took a forgotten gun through airport security, that “the failure rate approaches 70 percent at some major airports”.[44]

In June 2011 TSA fired 36 screeners at the Honolulu airport for regularly allowing bags through without being inspected.[140]

Some measures employed by the TSA have been accused of being ineffective and fostering a false sense of safety.[144][145] This led security expert Bruce Schneierto coin the term security theater to describe those measures.[146]

Unintended consequences of 2002 screening enhancements

Two studies by a group of Cornell University researchers have found that strict airport security has the unintended consequence of increasing road fatalities, as would-be air travelers decide to drive and are exposed to the far greater risk of dying in a car accident.[147][148] In 2005, the researchers looked at the immediate aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001, and found that the change in passenger travel modes led to 242 added driving deaths per month.[147] In all, they estimated that about 1,200 driving deaths could be attributed to the short-term effects of the attacks. The study attributes the change in traveler behavior to two factors: fear of terrorist attacks and the wish to avoid the inconvenience of strict security measures; no attempt is made to estimate separately the influence of each of these two factors.

In 2007, the researchers studied the specific effects of a change to security practices instituted by the TSA in late 2002. They concluded that this change reduced the number of air travelers by 6%, and estimated that consequently, 129 more people died in car accidents in the fourth quarter of 2002.[148] Extrapolating this rate of fatalities, New York Times contributor Nate Silver remarked that this is equivalent to “four fully loaded Boeing 737s crashing each year.”[149] The 2007 study also noted that strict airport security hurts the airline industry; it was estimated that the 6% reduction in the number of passengers in the fourth quarter of 2002 cost the industry $1.1 billion in lost business.[150]

Data security incidents

Employee records lost or stolen

In 2007, an unencrypted computer hard drive containing Social Security numbers, bank data, and payroll information for about 100,000 employees was lost or stolen from TSA headquarters. Kip Hawley alerted TSA employees to the loss, and apologized for it. The agency asked the FBI to investigate. There were no reports that the data was later misused.[151][152]

Unsecured website

In 2007, Christopher Soghoian, a blogger and security researcher, said that a TSA website was collecting private passenger information in an unsecured manner, exposing passengers to identity theft.[153] The website allowed passengers to dispute their inclusion on the No Fly List. The TSA fixed the website several days after the press picked up the story.[154] The U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform investigated the matter,[155] and said the website had operated insecurely for more than four months, during which more than 247 people had submitted personal information.[156] The report said the TSA manager who awarded the contract for creating the website was a high-school friend and former employee of the owner of the firm that received the contract.[157] It noted:

neither Desyne nor the technical lead on the traveler redress Web site have been sanctioned by TSA for their roles in the deployment of an insecure Web site. TSA continues to pay Desyne to host and maintain two major Web-based information systems. TSA has taken no steps to discipline the technical lead, who still holds a senior program management position at TSA.[158]

In December 2009, someone within the TSA posted a sensitive manual titled “Screening Management SOP” on secret airport screening guidelines to an obscure URL on the FedBizOpps website. The manual was taken down quickly, but the breach raised questions about whether security practices had been compromised.[159] Five TSA employees were placed on administrative leave over the manual’s publication, which, while redacted, had its redaction easily removed by computer-knowledgeable people.[160]

Other criticisms

Insignia

Common criticisms of the agency have also included assertions that TSA employees slept on the job,[161][162][163][164] bypassed security checks,[165] and failed to use good judgment and common sense.[166][167][168]

TSA agents are also accused of having mistreated passengers, and having sexually harassed passengers,[169][170][171][172] having used invasive screening procedures, including touching the genitals, including those of children,[173] removing nipple rings with pliers,[174] having searched passengers or their belongings for items other than weapons or explosives,[175] and having stolen from passengers.[127][176][177][178][179][180][181][182] The TSA fired 28 agents and suspended 15 others after an investigation determined they failed to scan checked baggage for explosives.[183]

The TSA was accused of having performed poorly at the 2009 Presidential Inauguration viewing areas, which left thousands of ticket holders excluded from the event in overcrowded conditions, while those who had arrived before the checkpoints were in place avoided screening altogether.[187][188]

A 2013 GAO report showed a 26% increase in misconduct among TSA employees between 2010 and 2012, from 2,691 cases to 3,408.[191] Another GAO report said that there is no evidence that the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) behavioral detection program, with an annual budget of hundreds of millions of dollars, is effective.[192]

A 2013 report by the Homeland Security Department Inspector General’s Office charged that TSA was using criminal investigators to do the job of lower paid employees, wasting millions of dollars a year.[193]

On December 3, 2013, the United States House of Representatives passed the Transportation Security Acquisition Reform Act (H.R. 2719; 113th Congress) in response to criticism of the TSA’s acquisition process as wasteful, costly, and ineffective.[194][195] If the bill became law, it would require the TSA to develop a comprehensive technology acquisition plan and present regular reports to Congress about its successes and failures to adhere to this plan. An April 2013 report from the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General indicated that the TSA had 17,000 items with an estimated cost of $185.7 million stored in its warehouses on May 31, 2012.[196] The auditors found that “TSA stored unusable or obsolete equipment, maintained inappropriate safety stock levels, and did not develop an inventory management process that systematically deploys equipment.”[196]

In January 2014, Jason Edward Harrington, a former TSA screener at O’Hare International Airport, said that fellow staff members assigned to review body scan images of airline passengers routinely joked about fliers’ weight, attractiveness, and penis and breast sizes. According to Harrington, screeners would alert each other to attractive female passengers with the code phrase “Hotel Papa” so that staff would have an opportunity to view the passengers’ nude form in body scanner monitors and retaliated against rude flyers by delaying them at the checkpoint. TSA Administrator John Pistole responded by saying that all the scanners had been replaced and the screening rooms disabled. He did not deny that the behaviors described by Harrington took place.[197]

In May 2016, actress Susan Sarandon revealed that during the entire time of the Bush administration she was “harassed everytime I came into the country”. She said that she hired two lawyers to contact the TSA to determine why she had been targeted, but that she assumed it was because she was critical of the Bush administration. She said the harassment stopped after her attorneys followed up a second time with the TSA.[198]

Public opinion

A CBS telephone poll of 1137 people published on November 15, 2010 found that 81% percent of those polled approved TSA’s use of full-body scans.[199] An ABC/Washington Post poll conducted by Langer Associates and released November 22, 2010 found that 64% of Americans favored the full-body X-ray scanners, but that 50% think the “enhanced” pat-downs go too far; 37% felt so strongly. In addition the poll states opposition is lowest among those who fly less than once a year.[200] A later poll by Zogby International found 61% of likely voters oppose the new measures by TSA.[201] In 2012, a poll conducted by the Frequent Business Traveler organization found that 56% of frequent fliers were “not satisfied” with the job the TSA was doing. 57% rated the TSA as doing a “poor job,” and 34% rated it “fair.” Only 1% of those surveyed rated the agency’s work as excellent.[202]

The TSA’s critics frequently cite the agency as “ineffective, invasive, incompetent, inexcusably costly, or all four”[216] as their reasons for seeking its abolition. Those seeking to abolish the TSA have cited the improved efficacy and cost of screening provided by qualified private companies in compliance with federal guidelines.[217]

Hillary Clinton and the “Dark Forces” in Benghazi

Kenneth Timmerman, author of Dark forces: The Truth About What Happened in Benghazi, looks at Hillary Clinton’s next scheduled appearance before the Benghazi special committee and the Iranian nuclear deal. He cites evidence that the Iranians were behind the attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans on September 11, 2012. In addition, Timmerman says Iran was involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks. Timmerman also discusses Russian backing for Iran and the Russian role in attacking the opponents of Assad in Syria. Timmerman also looks at: Will Russia attack the Kurds? And who are the Kurds? Is Obama a Muslim? Will Israel strike Iran?

Donald Trump blames George W. Bush for 9/11

Did Donald Trump blame Bush for 9/11?

Jake Tapper calls out Jeb Bush for saying his brother is blameless for 9/11

Richard Clarke, Former Counterterrorism Chief, Apologizes for 9/11

Your Government Failed You: Richard Clarke at the September 11 Commission on Counterterrorism (2004)

Richard Alan Clarke (born October 27, 1950) is the former National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism for the United States.

Clarke worked for the State Department during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush appointed him to chair the Counter-terrorism Security Group and to a seat on the United States National Security Council. President Bill Clinton retained Clarke and in 1998 promoted him to be the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Counter-terrorism, the chief counter-terrorism adviser on the National Security Council. Under President George W. Bush, Clarke initially continued in the same position, but the position was no longer given cabinet-level access. He later became the Special Advisor to the President on cybersecurity. Clarke left the Bush administration in 2003.

Clarke came to widespread public attention for his role as counter-terrorism czar in the Clinton and Bush administrations in March 2004, when he appeared on the 60 Minutes television news magazine, released his memoir about his service in government, Against All Enemies, and testified before the 9/11 Commission. In all three instances, Clarke was sharply critical of the Bush administration’s attitude toward counter-terrorism before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and of the decision to go to war with Iraq.

On March 24, 2004, Clarke testified at the public 9/11 Commission hearings.[17] At the outset of his testimony Clarke offered an apology to the families of 9/11 victims and an acknowledgment that the government had failed: “I also welcome the hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11…To the loved ones of the victims of 9/11, to them who are here in this room, to those who are watching on television, your government failed you. Those entrusted with protecting you failed you. And I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn’t matter because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask, once all the facts are out, for your understanding and for your forgiveness.”[17]

Many of the events Clarke recounted during the hearings were also published in his memoir. Clarke charged that before and during the 9/11 crisis, many in the Administration were distracted from efforts against Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda organization by a pre-occupation with Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Clarke had written that on September 12, 2001, President Bush pulled him and a couple of aides aside and “testily” asked him to try to find evidence that Saddam was connected to the terrorist attacks. In response he wrote a report stating there was no evidence of Iraqi involvement and got it signed by all relevant agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the CIA. The paper was quickly returned by a deputy with a note saying “Please update and resubmit.”[18] After initially denying that such a meeting between the President and Clarke took place, the White House later reversed its denial when others present backed Clarke’s version of the events.

Clarke is currently Chairman of Good Harbor Consulting and Good Harbour International, two strategic planning and corporate risk management firms; an on-air consultant for ABC News, and a contributor to the Good Harbor Report, an online community discussing homeland security, defense, and politics. He is an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and a faculty affiliate of its Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.[35] He has also become an author of fiction, publishing his first novel, The Scorpion’s Gate, in 2005, and a second, Breakpoint, in 2007.

Clarke wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post on May 31, 2009 harshly critical of other Bush administration officials, entitled “The Trauma of 9/11 Is No Excuse”.[36] Clarke wrote that he had little sympathy for his fellow officials who seemed to want to use the excuse of being traumatized, and caught unaware by Al-Qaeda’s attacks on the USA, because their being caught unaware was due to their ignoring clear reports a major attack on U.S. soil was imminent. Clarke particularly singled out former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

911 Press for Truth

Intelligence Stove Piping Is System Failure

Fannie Mae, Jamie Gorelick and The 911 Commission

911 Commission Co-Chair Explains Need for New Investigation

Jamie Gorelick for FBI director? Are you kidding me?

Inside Libya’s Militias

Libya War: What They Don’t Want You to Know

How Will History Judge U.S., Coalition Intervention in Libya?

Libyan No Fly Zone Necessary But Intervention Has Imperialist Objectives

Debate The Libyan Intervention: Humanitarian or an Aggression?

Democracy and Hypocrisy in Libya

Backlash? Wave of terror feared in Europe over Libya intervention

Semantics – The Rise and Fall of Muammar al Gaddafi

Why Did America and the West Intervene in Libya?

Former State Department officer Ethan Chorin explains, the United States and the West provided Muammar Qaddafi and his forces with many of the weapons they used to fight the rebels during the 2011 Libyan revolution. Therefore, the U.S. and NATO had a moral responsibility to help the anti-Qaddafi forces

US special forces already on ground in Libya – FoxNews 110324

Obama authorized CIA covert operation in Libya – FoxNews 110331

The Truth About The War On Libya Government Lies Revealed A Goverment Conspiracy 2011

SYRIA Retired General Suspects A US Covert Operation For Running Libya Arms To Syria

Mark Levin: No Birthright Citizenship – Hannity 8/19/2015

Jeb Bush dismisses Donald Trump’s immigration plans

Jamie Gorelick’s wall

By – The Washington Times – Thursday, April 15, 2004

The disclosure that Jamie Gorelick, a member of the September 11 commission, was personally responsible for instituting a key obstacle to cooperation between law enforcement and intelligence operations before the terrorist attacks raises disturbing questions about the integrity of the commission itself. Ms. Gorelick should not be cross-examining witnesses; instead, she should be required to testify about her own behavior under oath. Specifically, commission members need to ask her about a 1995 directive she wrote that made it more difficult for the FBI to locate two of the September 11 hijackers who had already entered the country by the summer of 2001.

On Tuesday, Attorney General John Ashcroft declassified a four-page directive sent by Ms. Gorelick (the No. 2 official in the Clinton Justice Department) on March 4, 1995, to FBI Director Louis Freeh and Mary Jo White, the New York-based U.S. attorney investigating the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In the memo, Ms. Gorelick ordered Mr. Freeh and Ms. White to follow information-sharing procedures that “go beyond what is legally required,” in order to avoid “any risk of creating an unwarranted appearance” that the Justice Department was using Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants, instead of ordinary criminal investigative procedures, in an effort to undermine the civil liberties of terrorism suspects.

At issue was the oft-noted wall of separation that prevented counterterrorism agents and federal prosecutors from communicating with one another prior to September 11. Information collected under special FISA warrants, which do not require a probable cause, was generally not to be shared with personnel responsible for enforcing federal criminal laws — where probable cause must be demonstrated for a warrant to be issued. As lawyers David Rivkin and Lee Casey noted on our Op-Ed page yesterday, the practical effect of the wall was that counterintelligence information was generally kept away from law enforcement personnel who were investigating al Qaeda activities. But Ms. Gorelick’s memo clearly indicated that the Clinton administration had decided as a matter of policy to go even beyond the law’s already stringent requirements in order to further choke off information sharing.

As Mr. Ashcroft noted during his testimony before the September 11 commission, all of this had a devastating effect into the investigation of al Qaeda operations in this country in the summer of 2001. For example, in late August, when the CIA told the FBI that Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi had entered the country, FBI investigators refused to permit criminal investigators with considerable knowledge about the most recent al Qaeda attack to join the manhunt. Also, a criminal search warrant to examine the computer of Zacarias Moussaoui, whose interest in flying aircraft had attracted attention, was rejected because FBI officials were afraid of breaching the wall.

Ms. Gorelick has been among the most partisan and aggressive Democratic panel members in questioning the anti-terror efforts of the Bush administration. The nation deserves a full accounting from Ms. Gorelick of why the Clinton administration felt it necessary to go the extra mile in order to hamper the capability of law enforcement and intelligence agents to talk to one another. If Ms. Gorelick fails to provide this, her actions would bring into serious doubt the credibility of the commission.

Mistress of Disaster: Jamie Gorelick

Ken Lay and Jack Abramoff must be green with envy over the all the mischief that has been accomplished by Jamie Gorelick, with scarcely any demonization in the press.

Imagine playing a central role in the biggest national defense disaster in 50 years. Imagine playing a central role in one of the biggest economic disasters in your country’s history. Imagine doing both as an un-elected official. Imagine getting filthy rich in the process, and even being allowed to sit self-righteously on a commission appointed to get to the bottom of the first disaster, which of course did not get to the bottom of that disaster or anything else for that matter.
Imagine ending, ruining or at least causing signficant quality deterioration in the lives of millions of people, most of whom will never know your name. Imagine counting your millions of dollars while people who tried to stop you from causing all this mayhem were getting blamed for most of the ills you actually contributed to.
Well, as un-imagineable as this is, there is one American who doesn’t have to imagine it. One Jamie Gorelick is this American. And without pretending that she caused the loss of countless thousands of lives and countless billions of dollars of wealth by herself, she certainly did push some of the early domino’s in catastrophic chain events that are a major factors in life in America today.
This is not a bad millineums’s work, when you think about it. Gorelick, an appointee of Bill Clinton, is the one who constructed the wall of separation that kept the CIA and the FBI from comparing notes and therefore invading the privacy of nice young men like, say, Muhammed Atta and Zacarius Moussaoui. While countless problems were uncovered in our intelligence operations in the wake of 9-11, no single factor comes close to in importance to Jamie Gorelick’s wall.
In fact, it was Gorelick’s wall, perhaps more than any other single factor, that induces some people to blame Clinton himself for 9-11 since he appointed her and she acted consistent with his philosophy of “crime fighting.” She put the wall into place as Deputy Attorney General in 1995.
And for good measure, she was appointed by Tom Daschle to serve on the “non partisan” 9-11 Commission. And we thought the fox in the henhouse was simply a metaphor. Of course, in a splendid example of “reaching across the aisle,” feckless Republican Slade Gorton of Washington did all he could to exonerate Gorelick in the commission. Thanks, Slade. God forbid the nation actually knows the truth.
But for Ms. Gorelick, one earth shaking catastrophe is just not enough. You might think that she caused enough carnage to us infidels on 9-11 as to qualify her for the 72 virgins upon her death. (this would also keep her consistent with several of Clinton’s philosophies).
Alas, that’s only part of her resume. Her fingerprints are all over the Fannie Mae-Freddie Mac mess, which is to say the mess that is central in the entire mortgage-housing crisis. Without so much as one scintilla of real estate or finance experience, she was appointed as Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae in 1997 and served in that role through 2003, which is when most of the systemic cancers that came home to roost today happened. She was instrumental in covering up problems with Fannie Mae while employed there and took multiple millions in bonuses as she helped construct this house of cards.
From Wikipedia:
One example of falsified financial transactions that helped the company meet earnings targets for 1998, a “manipulation” that triggered multimillion-dollar bonuses for top executives. On March 25, 2002, Business Week Gorelick is quoted as saying, “We believe we are managed safely. Fannie Mae is among the handful of top-quality institutions.” One year later, Government Regulators “accused Fannie Mae of improper accounting to the tune of $9 billion in unrecorded losses”
As we know, the financial damage done by the housing related problems in this country are still incalculable. Ms. Gorelick’s evil tab is still growing.
But it doesn’t stop there. She managed to be on the wrong side of the Duke LaCrosse case, working for Duke University to protect that school from it’s damaging knee jerk reactions to the spectacularly unbelievable charges filed by a stripper. (excuse me, exotic dancer). So, even on a smaller scale, she continues to make money while working to ruin the lives of innocent Americans in defense of liberal dogma. At the Department of Defense, when she served as legal counsel there in 1993, she drafted the “Don’t ask /don’t tell” policy.
From what can be gleaned, it all comes from being well connected. She was educated (is that what they call it?) at Harvard undergrad and Harvard Law. From there, she kept getting appointed to positions above her experience level where she could flex her liberal muscles, add a resume item, and move upward.http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/mistress_of_disaster_jamie_gor.html#ixzz3p3M8KxQf
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook